Whispers and Ashes
by Whedonist
Summary: A set of shorts focusing on those in Nikki & Nora's world and the impact knowing them and knowing about them has had.
1. Lucky

Title: Whispers and Ashes  
Disclaimer: Not mine. Nancylee Myatt's actually. I'm taking the characters out for spin. Thank you.  
Fandom: Nikki & Nora  
Pairing: Nikki/Nora  
Rating: PG-13

Lucky

_Arthur Beaumont_

"Rosemary Nicoline, if you don't get your nose out of my sauce," I warn, stopping short of rounding the kitchen island to prevent the heel of bread disappearing into the pot and coming back up dripping with sauce.

She blows on the steaming treat, the smell of the simmering Bolognese I've been letting cook for the past two hours filling the kitchen. "Arthur," she admonishes after she swallows the morsel and replaces the lid, "warn a girl before you sneak up on her."

I roll my eyes at my ex-wife and focus on putting on my apron. I've no urge to splatter myself finishing dinner.

"That shirt's a good color on you," Rosemary offers on the pale purple shirt, rounding the island to straighten out my tie and patting it down before she runs her hands down my chest. She has always been touchy.

"A gift from my daughter," I retort and scoot her out of the way to check on my water. I still need to put the pasta on, the bread is in the oven cooking, the sauce is almost done, just one last… "Make yourself useful, dear, and open up that bottle of wine. It needs to breathe."

She winks at me and says, "Of course." I watch her briefly saunter over to the wine before I turn my attention back to the stove.

Reducing the flame on the sauce, I go back to the boiling water and start adding the Pappardelle. It'll need about ten minutes to cook and as I glance at the clock, I realize I'm fine with time. Nikki's never been the most punctual creature, taking after me in those regards. I have some time yet.

I hear the cork pop on the bottle and look over my shoulder. Her mother sets the cork next to the bottle and pours herself a taste in one of the glasses she'd pulled out earlier. "So," she starts as she swirls the pinot, "tell me, do you know anything about our daughter's newest paramour?"

"No more than you," I say and turn to her taking the offered glass of wine. I'm a little annoyed with this information. Rose's most recent return to the city has caused old wounds in my daughter to reopen. I quiet that bit of annoyance and say, "Seems she's been tight lipped with you just as she's been tight lipped with me." I sip the room temperature liquid, enjoying the surprised look that crosses Rosemary's face more than the sweet, peppery tang of the wine.

"Hmm," she hums and rests the lip of the glass to her lips. "I don't think I like that." She sets the glass down and licks her lips.

"The wine or the unknown?" I ask.

"The wine is wonderful," she cuts me off. Her pink, lacquered nails drum along the edge of the tiled island. "Nikki tight lipped has never and will never be a good thing." Her thin brows knit in the most peculiar way as she says, "Remember when we sent her to my sisters in California. Two weeks in Los Angeles, barely a word about what she was up to, but she comes home with that dreadful creature…"

"Kiki, was the young lady's name," I provide and prevent the smile with another sip of wine.

"Kiki, that's right. I swear, Arthur…" She trails off and sighs, in that overly dramatic way that I've found a genetic trait passed on to our daughter.

"Need I remind you that you took off to Mauritius as soon as you saw them? Well, right after you hid your grandmother's silver." I set my empty glass down and turn back to the stove. Her silence is enough of the admission that I need.

The pasta is done just as I timed it. I make short work of draining, rinsing it off and placing the colander in the pot to cover and keep warm. The front door opens just as I place the lid.

"Daddy? Mother?" I hear Nikki's voice call from the front of the house.

Rosemary and I both look at the clock and then exchange a look. Nikki's on time.

Our daughter does not run 'on time'.

"Let's go," Rosemary tuts at me, ushering forward and then pulling me back by the apron strings. "Take that off, you look ridiculous."

"Right," I stammer, quickly undoing the strings and pulling it over my head to place on the island. Rosemary is already at the front of the house.

"Mother," I hear Nikki greet. "This is, Nora Delaney," I hear just as I round the corner and hit the bottom of the staircase to watch Nora shake my ex-wife's hand.

"Nice to meet you, ma'am," my daughter's date offers.

Wait…that's her…"Nikki?" I ask, feeling my face pinch.

"Daddy," my little girl offers me a beaming smile before she steps forward and kisses my cheek. She steps back and rubs at the smudge of lip gloss I can feel she left behind. "You remember Nora, right?"

I nod unable to offer much more.

"Arthur," Rosemary chastises and I'm finally able to find my wits and my manners.

"Sorry," I shake my head and offer my hand to Nora. "It's good to see you again."

"You too, sir," she says as Nikki steps behind the blonde and relieves her of her coat. "It's a nice home you have," she stammers, shuffling her feet a little as Nikki fusses over her.

"I'm going to show Nora around. Is dinner almost ready?" Nikki asks, taking Nora by the hand and starting up the steps.

"Five minutes," I say and call out as they're midway up, "Nikki, not to sound…I just…I thought you were bringing the girl that has had you so preoccupied?" I finish delicately.

My daughter offers me a smirk and says, "I did, daddy. Nora's my girlfriend."

My mouth opens on its own as I watch them disappear around the corner at the top of the steps.

"Arthur, dear, flies are starting to get in," Rosemary says to me as I feel a finger push against my chin and close my mouth. "Although, it seems you've met Nora before."

"Rosemary," I hiss and drag her back to the kitchen, "Her and Nikki are on the same squad."

"And I fail to see what your problem is, if they're on the same squad or not," she says smartly, her arms folding across her chest as I busy myself preparing the rest of our meal. She takes the bread from the oven and begins transferring the slices to the basket I'd laid out.

I transfer the pasta to a large serving dish and try to calm myself. I head to the dining room to place the food on the table. I turn back as she is right behind me to hand off the bread she put in the basket. The towel she placed over it is steaming slightly.

It's not like it's a bad thing. I try to talk myself down. Obviously, Nora is able to handle the job. She also appears to be stable with a _job_ which is more than I can say for some of the ladies my daughter's brought home.

But, then…

"She's putting her career on the line with this woman," I say aloud.

"Oh," is all Rosemary can come up.

"Really, woman? All you can muster up is an 'oh'?" I snap again.

"Really, man, is that all you can seem to care about?" she responds, folding her arms across her chest. "There's a look there, Arthur, it's new."

"You would know that how?" I bark back at her before backtracking, "I'm sorry…that was…"

"Regardless of where I've been, I'm her mother. Around or not, a mother knows. It's an unfortunate connection all mothers and daughters must suffer even if they wish they didn't." I watch as she sifts her weight.

Boards creak overhead and I sigh trying to relax. It's not as if I can control her. It's not like I don't like Nora, for as much as I know her.

"Arthur," my ex-wife starts, "I fail to see why you're that worried. You fussed and fought with Nikki when she enrolled at the N.O.P.D. for months…"

"I'm still not quite over that," I admit.

"So, if something were to happen between them that would hurt Nikki's career…" she trails off and shrugs, raising her hands palms up above her shoulders before letting them fall.

My mouth pinches and I open my mouth to respond, but Nikki and Nora's decent from the upper floor echoes and I clamp my mouth shut. Instead, I run a hand through my hair and try to collect myself. I really do wish I had another person besides the one before me to commiserate with.

Rosemary's never felt the same. Not the way that I did when I first laid eyes on my little girl. It was like a piece of me had been removed and made into something else, something I couldn't control, and something that fills me with a worry unparalleled. When I held her, I saw Nikki's future play out in the blink of an eye, her growth, her angst ridden teenage years, seeing her off to college, and then walking her down the aisle.

That vision gave me hope and pride and joy. Rosemary never understood that. She never understood why I was in fits after Nikki came out, worrying about her safety, her quality of life, her future and its happiness. Of why I mourned.

The worry and the mourning multiplied when she signed up for the police force.

And now this?

How much can a father take when his sole purpose for existence is hell bent on giving him a heart attack?

"Daddy?" Nikki's voice causes me to turn. Her eyes are bright, her smile is wide. She's glowing.

My little girl is glowing and happy, extremely so by look of it. The painful ache in my chest recedes and floods with warmth and pride of seeing her smile that way.

I guess it's settled. "Let's eat, pumpkin. I need to give a good grilling to that lady friend of yours." I take her arm and lead her to the table where Rosemary and Nora are already seated. I walk Nikki to the chair next to her partner and kiss her cheek. "Love you."

She kisses me back and whispers, "Me too."

I blink to clear my vision and take my seat at the table. I have a woman to get to know.


	2. A Way To You

A Way to You

_Jillian Lee Flemming_

Dr. Lint's office has always been the coolest with its slate colored walls and dark blue ceiling. The furniture is wood and leather; the desk a rich mahogany that looks antique in the not pretentious way. The couch we sit on is a creamy, purposefully dirty white leather that you sink into. The carpet is thick, plush and matches the ceiling. He's always got some blues playing quietly in the background. It's all meant to make you feel safe.

It does.

I'm grateful for it.

He sits across from us in a matching club chair and waits. He's really good at that. Sort of annoyingly too fucking good at that.

The silence since our session started has been pretty…pregnant. I tuck the hair that's fallen in front of my left eye behind my ear and worry my lower lip. I should just…

"It's good," I blurt just trying to fill the silence with something and since the something that's been on my mind for the last two weeks won't seem to shut its fucking mouth, I may as well just get it out there.

I hear Annie sigh next to me. I feel her shift so I try to give her space, backing up against the right arm of the chair, kicking off my shoes and spinning to face her way while I bring my knees up to my chest. I wrap my arms around my jean clad knees and look at her. Her hands in her lap, her shoulders a little slumped.

The sight of her makes me feel like shit all over again.

Love should come with some goddamn warning labels…an instruction manual wouldn't go unappreciated either.

"What's good?" Dr. Lint finally asks as the lack of anything else stretches on too long.

I pick at a loose string from the bottom of my jeans and shrug. I lick my lips and look between my wife and our shrink.

Screw it.

"You know about Nora, right? I don't need to go through that again?" I ask, not really remembering how much we've talked about her.

He nods. "Ann's ex," is all he gives. It's all he ever gives. A few words here and there. Sparse, direct, sometimes cutting, sometimes the only thing you need to hear is an 'it's okay' from him. Which when we first started to see him, I was surprised with. He's six-foot-four, short cropped blonde hair, green eyes, and is always in black slacks and a dark colored polo. He's also got massive shoulders and a chest, in the football player way, so his looks belie his demeanor. It was the best wrong first impression I've had.

"Right," I lick my lips again and swipe away the last vestiges of the lip gloss I'd put on this morning. "Well, we went down to see her a few weeks ago. She's got a girlfriend. I think it's good."

"What's that mean?" Annie asks, hackles raised, tone defensive. It's not unexpected. She's as fiercely protective of Nora as she is me. Saying things about her in a not one-hundred-percent positive light or tone…she gets bitchy and there's a fight.

I look up at her when I feel her staring. The corner of my mouth turns up at my wife. With her stiff, straight back and set jaw, she's less Annie and more 'protective dog'. It's sweet.

But I don't try to back track. I say instead, "It means that unless you were fucking comatose there's no way you missed Nora going ass over teakettle with Nikki. Which, like I'm trying to say, is a good fucking thing."

"Why?" Lint asks unfazed by my love of the word 'fuck'.

I ignore the 'why' and scooch over to my wife. Disregarding her grunt of annoyance as I reach down and remove her shoes. She draws her legs up, crisscrossing them underneath her. "Sorry," I say sheepishly as I flip myself around and rest my head in her lap. She doesn't look that impressed, but the little, begrudging smirk gives her away. "I'm a tactile girl. More with you than anyone else live with it."

She shrugs and lets me tangle our hands together.

I ask, "We're still in 'safe place, shrinks office', right? If I say a few things, I'm not going to pay for it for a week, maybe two, later?"

"Depends," she answers honestly.

My mouth screws to the side as I gauge the response. Yes, it was honest, but it's also a warning to tread lightly. "Right," I sigh. "So here's the thing with Nora that…no, wait, what I'm saying, babe, is that our love," I squeeze our entwined hands resting atop my stomach, "it's conditional. Which isn't bad. It just is. Nora, though, that's the thing with her, she doesn't do conditional love. It's sort of an 'all or nothing' thing with her. It's why I was fucking impossible to deal with the first year."

"You're finally admitting you were being an irrationally jealous bitch?" she asks with no hint of tease or amusement.

I really was. I shrug. "Maybe."

She snorts.

"Fine, yes, but you can't…" I look over to Lint, who's just watching us, "she can't blame me."

"The hell I can't," she states above.

"Okay, so you can, but you won't. And you won't because I'm right. You two were together when I came down. She loves you, Annie…"

"She loves you too," she points out.

"She does, 'cause she's fucking amazing that way, but you're missing the point. The point, my beautiful jackass, is that she loved, loves, you unconditionally. She loved you enough to know that you and I were end game." I smile up at her, trying my best to say this as positively as I can. It is positive. It's just…complicated. "I couldn't have done what she did. I'd have fought, hard. I'd have probably tried to run me out of town if the roles were reversed. Nora didn't. She supported us."

"So then…?" Lint asks, trying to get to the point.

"I thought when I went to New Orleans that I knew how to love you. I knew I did love you. I knew I wanted to be with you, but when I stayed and watched, I knew that I didn't know how to love you, not like the way Nora loves. She taught me how, even if you or her didn't know it and watching her with Nikki a few weeks ago, seeing that happen, it…I remembered why I was a jealous nut job to begin with."

"Seeing what happen?" Annie's brow crinkles with the question.

"Seeing her meet her end game," I answer. "And I'm incredibly happy that she's happy and that Nikki seems to love her just as much. I've just been thinking about it. Which is how this conversation started. It's a good thing. I want her happy just as much as you. And…" I press a finger to her parted lips before she can interrupt me, "I've been brooding about it for a week and I wanted to say something. She deserves it and she needs that."

"So?" Lint speaks up again.

Her lip turns up in disgust. "My wife's an idiot. I'm not leaving her. Nora's in love and yes, Jill, it's a great thing." Her cheeks puff out for a moment then deflate as she asks, "It still doesn't explain you being next to impossible this past week or so. I counter you with a 'What the fuck, Jill?'"

I don't have an answer to that. I have a large amount of guilt for the closed off, broody mess, I've been, but that's all. And despite the "safe zone" of our therapist's office, I can't share other parts, thoughts and feelings about our relationship I refuse to voice, with either of them.

Probably not ever.

I shrug up at her and swipe away the tears that have leaked from the corners of my eyes and over my temples. I turn my head into her stomach and feel her take a deep slow breath. As she exhales, she leans down and I kiss her neck.

"You're impossible," her lips press against my forehead, "impossibly frustrating, Jillian. I love you though, so there's that."

"Asshole," I grumble back at her.

"Just means we make the best team," she says and kisses the tip of my nose.


	3. For It All

A/N: Two things:

1. Some of these won't tie back into the A.U. that I've built. Obviously the second one and this one will...the first didn't.  
2. Since this does tie back to the A.U., this one ties back directly to Mrs. Delaney after her dinner with Nora & Co. during Roll Away Your Stone. I kept toying with this wanting to make it longer or more, but I quit futzing with it 'cause it says everything I needed it to. So sorry for the shortness.

* * *

III. For It All

_Nancy Delaney_

"I'm pissed at you. Angry and disappointed, Daddy, and I shouldn't be 'cause you're dead. I've been cussin' at you somethin' fierce for the past week, but we shouldn't speak ill of the dead..." Nancy stopped the agitated tugging of the weeds around the headstone. Blinking, she tried to clear her vision through the tears. "I...you and God'll just have to forgive me for this one."

She shifted slightly, adjusting the weight of her body resting on her calves. Her knee protested under the weight, but she ignored the discomfort. There were more pressing matters to discuss as she sat at her husband's grave. The inhalation of the cold morning air caused a shudder to pass through her as she ignored the tears that snaked down her cheeks.

"Your daughter finally told me. She told me about Nikki, about why she got so distant, about the talk you two had when she was fresh out of the academy. The promises that you shouldn't have made her promise, but you did anyhow that took her away from me." The tissue balled in her fist, the skin of her knuckles turned white as it stretched over the bone.

"Patrick told me too..." she choked on the next words as they caught in her throat, "...that 'falling out' you two had when he was seventeen...how could you? He's your son." She stopped then, trying to find the words to move forward.

She couldn't find them though. There was so much mess to sort through and she didn't know where to start. The revelations her eldest son and only daughter provided a week ago still sat heavy on her chest. She couldn't decide where to start on the mass that'd been given form.

It had lived there for years. It started small, when Patrick shipped out for the Marines, doubled after Nora started to drift away, and metastasized year after year as two of her children cut her out of their lives. She always wondered what it was and what grievous error she made as a parent for her children to shut her out the way that they did.

She reasoned over the years that they were just private that way. Just independent and introverted. But to find out that it was done for a reason...reasons. They said protection...protection from what she wanted to ask, but the wound they'd tore into her chest stopped her from asking. Instead she'd focused on the multitude of lies they'd told her, lies repeated like gospel at Sunday Mass. She'd foolishly believed them.

"Should I have known?" Nancy's thoughts find voice and are carried along the wind. She hopes they go from her lips to her dead husband's or even God's ears. She doubts it though. "I should have. Should have known it somehow." Her lips press together as she bows her head. "I should have been able to put it together, at least with Nora. A good mother would have."

Nancy couldn't really speak to Patrick, but Nora, her "friendship" with Ann, her total disregard for the nice young men Nancy had tried to set her up with, and Dan's advances. She just thought her daughter was funny that way. "Funny," she ground out bitterly. The tightness across her chased ached.

"If I'd have known..." Nancy trailed off and sighed, "Well, I'm not sure what I would've done. It's not something I've had any exposure to. You know, T.V. a little and then Father Corbet has said a few things, Phillip, but what do I do about it now?" She waited, tracing the engraving of his name on the marble, and half expecting an answer. Her mouth worked itself open and she whispered, "I just can't understand why they'd choose this? Where'd we go wrong?"


End file.
